"“You Came Back?” the Maid Whispered—The Mafia Boss Secretly Returned Before Dawn to Test His Fiancée, Then Heard Her Threaten His Widowed Sister and Steal From His Dead Mother’s Trust…

Dominic ran before anyone could stop him.

Rain hit his face as he crossed the lawn.

The cottage burned at the rear, flames pushing out through the sewing-room windows where they had found the blue box less than an hour earlier.

Natalie caught up behind him.

“Dom!”

“Stay back!”

“That was Mom’s house!”

“It’s a building!”

“It’s all I have left of her!”

Dominic turned so sharply she almost ran into him.

“No. You have Noah. You have me. You do not go into a burning house for furniture.”

Natalie stared at him, furious and crying.

Then she pointed through the smoke.

“The letters.”

Dominic followed her finger.

In the front room, beyond a broken window, stood Catherine’s old writing desk.

Natalie had once told him their mother kept every letter their father had sent from college in the bottom drawer.

Dominic swore.

Luca arrived. “Fire department is four minutes out.”

“Back of the house?”

“Fully involved.”

“Front room?”

“Smoke, not flame yet.”

Dominic looked at Natalie.

“No.”

She knew him too well.

“Don’t you dare.”

He handed his phone to Luca and ran inside.

“Dominic!”

Smoke swallowed him.

The heat hit like an open oven.

He stayed low, one sleeve over his mouth, and moved through a room that still looked almost normal except for the black smoke rolling across the ceiling.

Catherine’s chair sat near the fireplace.

Her reading glasses rested on the side table.

For one terrible second, Dominic saw her there.

Not as she had been at the end, tired and thin.

As she had been when he was twelve, yelling at him for bringing muddy shoes into the house.

“Not now,” he muttered.

He reached the desk.

The top drawer jammed.

He kicked it once.

Wood split.

Inside were letters, photographs, and a small metal cash box.

He grabbed the entire drawer.

A ceiling beam cracked behind him.

Dominic turned.

Fire had reached the hall.

The front door was twenty feet away.

A section of plaster crashed down between him and it.

Outside, Natalie screamed his name.

Dominic backed toward the window.

The glass had already broken from heat.

He threw the desk drawer through the opening.

Luca caught it.

Then Dominic climbed out after it as the rear ceiling collapsed with a roar.

Natalie hit him before she hugged him.

“You idiot!”

“I know.”

“You absolute idiot!”

“I know.”

She held him harder.

Fire crews arrived moments later.

Emma wrapped a blanket around Dominic’s shoulders.

“You smell terrible.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean like burned curtains and bad decisions.”

“That’s more specific.”

Noah ran across the lawn and clung to Natalie.

The family stood in the rain as Catherine’s cottage disappeared behind smoke and water.

Then Luca opened the metal cash box from the desk drawer.

Inside were old jewelry receipts, insurance papers, a stack of photographs—and a second envelope.

This one was addressed to Dominic.

He tore it open.

The letter was only two paragraphs.

Dom,

You trust loyalty because you have had to buy so much of it. That makes you careless with the loyalty given freely. Adrian has been moving money through vendors I cannot verify. Grant keeps asking me to amend the trust. Brooke has started asking questions about the cottage that are none of her business.

If I am wrong, forgive an old woman. If I am right, do not solve this the way your father would. Find the truth first. Protect Natalie and Noah. Then decide what kind of man you are.

Dominic read it twice.

Natalie whispered, “She knew.”

“Yes.”

Luca handed him one of the photographs from the box.

It showed Catherine at a charity dinner six weeks before her death.

Brooke stood beside her.

Adrian stood behind Brooke.

And on Brooke’s other side was a man Dominic had not seen in years.

Randall Harrington.

On the back, Catherine had written a date and five words.

THEY THINK I DON’T SEE.

Then Luca’s radio crackled.